Princess Bari

by Sok-yong Hwang

  Early the next morning, while Luna was still asleep, I packed a small bag and went upstairs to Grandfather Abdul’s flat. He told me Ali would be there soon to pick me up, but I was still nervous; so he called Ali to make sure he was on the way. It turned out he wasn’t even awake yet. Grandfather Abdul shouted at him.

  “What are you still doing in bed? I just spoke to you about this last night! Get over here now!”

  After he hung up, he paced around the flat with his hands clasped behind his back and kept returning to the window to look down at the street.

  “He needs to get here before the Border Agency opens …”

  Nearly an hour went by before Ali came thumping up the stairs and banged on the door.

  “Why are you so late?” Grandfather Abdul said. “Do you want her to get arrested?”

  Ali didn’t seem to have grasped the situation. He grumbled sullenly: “It took a while to get my friend to loan me his car. Doesn’t she need a car if she’s moving flats?”

  “When did I say she’s moving flats? I asked you to take some time off of work and take care of Bari for a few days!”

  Ali caught my eye and grinned, his white teeth showing. Once we were out of the house and in the car, I felt more relaxed. I figured the Nigerian woman had also left home early to hide out at her housekeeping job. Grandfather Abdul said he’d warned the Filipino man, who worked as a hospital janitor. In any case, he had no desire to see any of his neighbours arrested or deported. He also didn’t want Mr Azad, the landlord, to blame him when there was less rent to collect that month. The car that Ali had borrowed was a banger: the door was crushed in, and the bumper was nearly falling off.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “I figure we’ll go to my flat first,” Ali said as he slowly made his way out of my neighbourhood.

  He probably didn’t know the whole story, but I assumed that Grandfather Abdul had told him that I didn’t have a work permit and was in danger of being deported.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “The minicab company I work for is also crawling with illegal immigrants. Some of them don’t even have driver’s licences.”

  I didn’t say anything at first, just sat there sullenly in the passenger’s seat and muttered to myself: “Why do we have to have borders, anyway?”

  Ali lived in Shepherd’s Bush, in West London, a neighbourhood filled with people of different races, much like where I lived. It wasn’t far from Holland Park, where Lady Emily lived. A single street separated the two neighbourhoods, yet they were completely different. The road split off into five directions, and was centred around an ugly, garbage-strewn park with patches of dirt showing through the grass. It reminded me of an unwashed puppy. Narrow alleys led back between the shop buildings along a curving market street. Ali’s flat was located down one of the alleys, in a three-storey building with an unlit entrance.

  It wasn’t much, just a railroad flat the size of a small studio divided into two rooms. The front room had a double sink and a beat-up table with rickety legs and four chairs, and the back room had a bed pushed up against the wall. I don’t know where he’d found it, but a metal chest of drawers, like something you’d see in an office, stood at the foot of the bed. I started to ask Ali why he didn’t just live with his grandfather, but held back. Most young people probably wouldn’t feel comfortable living with someone so much older.

  That day Ali and I got to know each other a little better. I told him how I’d wound up in London, including how my family got split up, how I crossed the Tumen River and what had happened in China. Ali said he’d heard similar stories from his father and grandfather. Because he was born in Britain, he’d never seen where they were from. He had trouble pronouncing the name of their hometown.

  “Srinagar. Have you heard of it?”

  “No, never. Have you heard of Chongjin?”

  “Chee-ung …?”

  We spent the day in his room, and that evening Ali dropped me off at the flat while he went to work. When I walked in, Grandfather Abdul told me that a man and woman from the UK Border Agency had come by. They didn’t search every flat, but they did ask him question after question about each of the residents. He showed them the tenant list and gave them everyone’s name and occupation. Regarding the young Filipino man, he told them he was a previous tenant who had since moved. He said he didn’t know where he was now. As for my flat, he told them Luna lived alone. In fact, Luna had rented the flat first; all she and I did was split the rent after I moved in. There was never any reason for my name to be added to the tenant list. They said they were going to inspect the Nigerian couple’s flat, but Grandfather Abdul got up the nerve to stop them.

  “I told them I could not unlock the door without the tenants’ permission. I said if there were charges against them, then they could come back with a court warrant. As it is, they might still come back. It’ll take a few more days to settle this.”

  Grandfather Abdul offered me some chapatti and lamb. I tried to turn it down, but then offered instead to come back early the next evening and fix him a tasty dinner in exchange.

  “So,” he said, as he sat down across from me. “Is Ali taking good care of you?”

  “Yes. But I don’t understand why he lives alone.”

  Grandfather Abdul laughed out loud.

  “Neither do I! When I was his age, we all lived with extended family. After moving here, it took me several years to get used to living alone. It was very hard on me when Ali’s father married and got a job in Leeds. I was working in London, so I couldn’t move there with them.”

  Grandfather Abdul had worked in a hotel before he retired. He lived in the building for free in exchange for looking after Mr Azad’s rental property. He told me the landlord worked in a bank and owned five such buildings.

  “Poor Ali,” Grandfather Abdul said. “He grew up sharing a room with several others. That’s probably why he wants to live alone for now.” (Ali had told me bashfully that he had six brothers and sisters, so I understood at once what Grandfather Abdul meant.)

  I spent the next three days hanging out in Ali’s flat. I was following Grandfather Abdul’s advice to lay low until the weekend. Luna relayed Uncle Tan’s messages to me. Nothing had gone wrong at the salon, but I would need to keep my distance until the weekend. Then it would be okay for me to come back to work the following Tuesday. Luna also told me that Auntie Sarah had called several times: Lady Emily was looking for me.

  *

  Back then, whenever I felt lonely and whenever times were tough, I thought of my grandmother. I would mumble the old stories we used to recite to each other, first speaking in my voice and then switching to hers. I would hear Luna’s light snores, and toss and turn in bed for a while before sending my spirit afloat. The more often I did this, the more clearly I was able to see my body lying below.

  I would float up a little and look down at my body, curled on its side. I could see Luna’s body too, and everything in the room. I would float higher as darkness closed around me and the white path appeared. It was always the same up to that point:

  I take a few steps down the path, and Chilsung’s white fur appears. As always, he is wagging his tail.

  Chilsung-ah! I need to talk to Grandmother.

  Okay, Bari. She’s waiting for you.

  Chilsung turns around and leads the way, glancing back at me now and then. I float behind him, along the dazzlingly white path. At the top of a hill shrouded in smoke-like wisps of fog, or maybe clouds, stands a tall, octagonal pavilion supported by stone steps. Wide, round pillars hold the heavy roof aloft. Grandmother waves at me from inside the pavilion.

  Our little Bari! You’ve been through a lot, haven’t you?

  No, I’m okay.

  It’s a wonder you’ve made it this far. But there’s still a long way to go. Look down there.

  Grandmother stands at the railing and points. The white cloud-like things part, and just visible below are fields and mountains and rivers and a city. />
  Where is that?

  That’s where you live. You must have met people from all over the world by now.

  Yes, all kinds of people.

  Bari, have you figured it out yet? I tried to warn you when I was telling you those old stories. I told you the path you’re on would bring you to a great many people who would ask for your help. And they’ll keep asking why they must suffer.

  Yes, and you told me that Princess Bari travelled to the otherworld to find out.

  That’s right, which means you need to be ready with an answer.

  I won’t know that until I’ve been to the otherworld.

  Once you’ve been there, you’ll be able to help all of them.

  Even though we speak different languages and look different and come from different places?

  Grandmother smiles, her wrinkles squeezing together.

  Of course. The world and every person in it – we’re all the same. We’re all lacking and sick and stupid and greedy.

  I feel for them, I say.

  Bari, I’m so proud of you! It’s when you learn to empathize that the answer comes to you.

  Grandmother waves her hand again, and the cloud-like things blanket the pavilion in white.

  Now you’ll marry the jangseung. You’ll have to search for the life-giving water while you’re living with him.

  Grandma, do other people have ancestral spirits like me?

  Of course. They’re everywhere. All souls are washed from muddy to clean. I have to go now. It’s time for you to go, too.

  I fly out of the pavilion like a puff of smoke on the breeze. The clouds or fog surround me, and there is Chilsung again, wagging his tail on the path that I came down earlier. No sooner am I back, floating near the ceiling of my bedroom and looking down at myself, than my spirit returns to my body and my eyes open. The dark branches of trees are visible through the window.

  *

  I think it was the afternoon of my third day at Ali’s flat. We were sitting at the table when he suddenly leaned over and kissed me. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, and he laughed and copied me. He wouldn’t stop snickering. I didn’t know what was so funny about it.

  “What’re you laughing at?” I asked.

  “What a baby you are,” he said and laughed again.

  “Don’t copy me.”

  Then suddenly he swept me up in his arms and lay me down on the bed. Huh, I thought, he probably assumed I’d put up a fight. I lay there like a doll, my arms and legs limp. When Ali lay down next to me, the bed felt like it was caving in. He tried to touch my breast, but I brushed his hand away. I was embarrassed because it reminded me of how that fat woman, the pimp at the Chinatown brothel I’d been taken to when I first arrived, had examined my body and laughed at my flat chest. But then I realized what Ali wanted. He pulled his shirt off and tried to unbuckle my belt. I put my hands on his chest and pushed him back, and then I undid my own belt and slid out of my trousers. He did the same. When he took off my underwear, I lay still. I was naked. His chest, arms and legs – nearly his entire body – were covered with dark hair. I wondered, stupidly: Does eating all that lamb make people grow wool?

  When he pushed inside of me, it hurt so much that my hair stood on end and my spirit nearly left my body. For a moment I saw a woman with her hair covered by a white hijab, two little girls and an old man with a beard and a long tunic standing in a row next to the bed.

  That weekend, Ali and I went to see Grandfather Abdul. We were going because I wanted to; Ali was very taken aback at first by the suggestion, but when he heard why, he pursed his lips and thought for a long time with his head down. Then he nodded and agreed. I explained: “You and I are different from Westerners. I don’t know your customs, but where I come from, women don’t just sleep with a man they aren’t planning to marry. I’ve decided that I’m going to be your wife.”

  I learned something awful later. In his family’s home country, daughters and sisters like me who gave their virginity away without their parents’ permission could be beaten to death by their fathers and older brothers, and no one would say a thing about it. When we walked into Grandfather Abdul’s flat together looking nervous, he frowned but didn’t ask us what was wrong. I realized belatedly that he was waiting for us to say something first, so I reached back and pinched Ali on the butt. He let out a small yelp, shot me a look and then quickly explained why we were there.

  “Um, I, uh, want to marry Bari.”

  I wanted to yell: You idiot! You can’t just blurt it out like that! But instead I looked at him and scowled.

  “Do you feel the same way, Bari?”

  I couldn’t bring myself to answer the question out loud, so I just nodded, my head hanging down. Grandfather Abdul looked at us from over his reading glasses.

  “Bari, come sit down. Ali, give us some space.”

  “Where do you want me to go?”

  “Boy, what do I care? Just go down to the pub and get a beer or something! It doesn’t matter. But be back in an hour!”

  Ali jumped up and hurried out the door. Grandfather Abdul and I were alone. I perched on the edge of a chair across from where he sat.

  “How old are you?” he asked.

  “I’m eighteen this year.”

  “That’s young. But then again, when I was your age people got married even younger than that. However, we are also Muslims who believe in God. Muslims are supposed to marry other Muslims, even though not everyone sticks to that these days. Do you really like Ali?”

  I couldn’t stop myself from laughing at the question.

  “Ali is so silly,” I said. “He’s a big kid.”

  “So you do like him. If you two want to marry, I won’t stop you. I just want that boy to get his act together, work hard, earn money and live a good Muslim life. We’re in a foreign land. What more can I ask of him?”

  Grandfather Abdul asked where we planned to live, and I told him without hesitation that I wanted to get rid of Ali’s flat in Shepherd’s Bush, where he lived alone, and move in with Grandfather Abdul right away. He had two bedrooms and a living room, and it was already fully furnished. But most of all, I would feel more secure if the three of us lived together.

  “I imagine Ali will object,” he said. “Hang on. The flat across from yours must be vacant now. Why not live there?” He explained that he’d gotten a phone call from the Nigerian woman: her husband had been deported, so she was moving away.

  “I don’t think we need to preserve all our traditional marriage customs. We can combine the mayoun and mehndi and hold them here, as a preliminary wedding ceremony that your friends and Ali’s can attend; and then the actual wedding can be held at Ali’s parents’ house in Leeds for neighbours and relatives.”

  He brought up their ancestors again.

  “My father was a shepherd, but he owned some farmland too. For generations they lived in a village in Kargil, in the northern Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. He was a follower of Sheikh Abdullah, but after the sheikh was arrested, my father took the family and moved to Srinagar.”

  Even after I became a part of their family and had lived with them for years, I still hadn’t come to understand half of Islamic doctrine, and understood even less of the stories about their ancestors and their home country. When I was growing up, I’d been told that North and South Korea lived differently and thought differently, and therefore had always fought like cats and dogs, and the grown-ups said it was the fault of those big-nosed Americans. The elders in Ali’s family likewise told me that Hindus and Muslims had split into India and Pakistan and fought for a long time, that in Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir, innocent people were still being rounded up and killed, and that the British were originally to blame for this.

  Grandfather Abdul told me innocent civilians were still being killed in this fake war. He said that when he was young, soldiers would brazenly break down people’s doors in broad daylight, storm their houses and shoot them.

  “What’s a ‘fak
e war’?”

  “That’s when soldiers murder Muslims in order to steal and do whatever they want, and then report it to their superior officers as ‘shooting resisters’. For that they’re rewarded with money and promotions. There was another story like that in the news just recently.”

  Grandfather Abdul had returned from the fields one day to find that his wife and two daughters had been shot to death. Ali’s father, who was five at the time, was hiding under a water barrel.

  “We’re the only two in our family who survived.”

  Grandfather Abdul and Ali’s father fled to London in the mid-1960s, during the height of the conflict in Kashmir.

  “I was thirty at the time, and had already lived through everything you can imagine. I got remarried. Men have to get married if they want to save money. When you live alone, you get reckless. A couple of years ago my second wife passed away, and now my only wish left is to make a pilgrimage to Mecca.”

  Just then I remembered the shadowy figures I’d seen in Ali’s flat a few days earlier.

  “I saw some people in a dream,” I told Grandfather Abdul. “A lady in a white hijab and two girls. Also an elderly man in a tunic and a long beard.”

  Grandfather Abdul slowly nodded.

  “That was probably Ali’s grandmother and our two daughters. The man with the long beard is definitely my father.” His eyes were already filling with tears. He wiped them away with his sleeve. “Thank you for telling me. If they visited you, then it means they’ve accepted you as family.”

  Ali said he had to talk to his parents before we got married, and Grandfather Abdul agreed. We decided not to drag it out and made plans to go to Leeds the following Monday, when we were both free. Leeds was north of London, in Yorkshire, two and a half hours away by train. It was a little too far for a day-trip, so we planned on spending the night at Ali’s parents’ house and returning the next day. Grandfather Abdul called Ali’s father first to tell him what was happening, while Ali called his mother. If Ali had told them on his own, they probably would have dismissed it as nonsense.

  Ali’s house was on the outskirts of Leeds, in a Muslim enclave. Most of the houses in the neighbourhood were painted white and had slab roofs, which made the buildings all look alike. Instead of going out to a yard, neighbours went up to their roofs to drink and talk and have barbecues. Most of the people there were Pakistani. Ali’s three younger siblings were still living with their parents. Ali was the second-oldest. His older brother had already married and moved out, while his next-youngest sister lived in the neighbouring city of Bradford with her husband. His mother told us that they would probably only come to the wedding ceremony itself or to the baraat, the groom’s procession to the wedding.